Jonathan D. Varat

Jonathan Varat teaches Constitutional Law I & II, Federal Courts, and Separation of Powers. He was awarded the School of Law's Rutter Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1990. He served twice as Associate Dean of the law school and as its Dean from 1998 – 2003. Professor Varat is co-author of a major constitutional law casebook, Constitutional Law: Cases and Materials (with Amar & Cohen, 2013), and is an expert on federal courts. His scholarship focuses particularly on constitutional federalism.

Professor Varat was schooled in Philadelphia and spent a two-year stint in the U.S. Army between his second and third years of law school in a variety of less-than-desirable locations. Thereafter, he clerked for Judge Walter Mansfield of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and Justice Byron White of the U.S. Supreme Court. He then practiced as a litigator for two years with O'Melveny & Myers before joining the law faculty. Among his nonacademic interests is long-distance running.